Boeing: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

I worked for Boeing for nearly 40 years. Retired in 2019. The problems all started when McDonnell Douglas “merged” with us. The whole business model changed from producing quality products to making more money. Period. Just as depicted in this piece. I saw it with my own eyes and lived it every day. So sad. I loved my company and it was like watching someone you love die from a slow and painful death.

My dad has a degree in chemistry and worked as a manager. He always said: "It is much easier to teach an engineer some accounting than to teach an MBA science."

Two whistleblower deaths later, this episode was about three weeks too early. I hope we get a Boeing II episode soon

Boeing is the sound it makes when the door springs off.

"Started by the spirit of innovation, killed by greed." is pretty much a tagline for our modern society.

I worked at Boeing as an Aerospace Engineer on the 787 program and was retaliated against when I disclosed to the FAA that a flight critical component didn't meet the quality and structural integrity requirements.

"We went to Business school, get on our plane!" Wow that was scarily accurate.

this is even scarier now that two boeing whistle blowers mysteriously died shortly after one another

Boeing: The best Airbus ad.

My uncle is an engineer at Boeing. I remember, about a decade ago, having a conversation with him about how the old board, who were mostly other engineers, were all gone. They were replaced by the usual corporate types who didn’t seem to understand that you can’t cut corners in aviation.

Xerox also dived when the corporate office left Rochester NY manufacturing to relocate in upscale Connecticut. There was a medieval poem lamenting ' the Lord and his Lady no longer join us in the great hall, but take their dinners in private alone". It's one of the saddest and truest statements of what happens when management leaves the ordinary workers

I had a great uncle that worked for McDonnell-Douglas (now BOEING) until he retired in the 1980/90’s. He is long passed away. He would not fly, even though he could do so for free, sighting he saw what happened on the assembly line. He would drive back to Saskatchewan, Canada from Seattle. More than 1200miles (1800km).

As an Aerospace Engineer, I can tell you that John's description of the 737 Max design issues and subsequent MCAS problems were spot on, technically accurate, and presented in a language that is easily understood by non technical individuals. Now why can't actual journalists and media outlets do the same?

"The employees feared retaliation for raising safety related concerns." -> Boeing whisteblower was just found dead today. I wonder if John needs to do a follow up video.

In light of the recent 2nd whistleblower death, perhaps an emergency follow up to this episode is needed.

What I find insane is that in university when I was getting my aerospace engineering degree, my professors worshipped the Dreamliner. They spoke about it all the time in class. It was one the planes we studied the most (from the manufacturing, to the testing, to the material choices) but they never mentioned any of these problems in all those lectures

I'm an engineering student in Seattle, and took a class this quarter that brought in a bunch of Boeing employees as mentors for us. The midterm for the class was a presentation in front of about a dozen Boeing engineers. One group was presenting on fasteners, and got to the topic of torque wrenches, which tell you how tight a bolt is when you tighten it. This dude, standing in front of all these Boeing engineers, says "torque wrenches are important because if the bolt is too tight, then it will put stress on the bolt, and if it's too loose, then you could lose a part... like a door." The reactions from the mentors were priceless.

I feel like "We went to business school. Get on our plane!" aptly encapsulates not just the enshittification of aircraft, but also the enshittification of pretty much everything from dating apps to video games, to taxis, to hotels, to movies, and beyond.

How about "Even if it's Boeing, you should be whistleblowing"

the skit at the end was hilarious. The one guy stealing all the missing bolts for his bolt addiction is genius